Hamish and Peter take on the Howser Tower

[gnarnaphobe]

Summer of '83; I finished grade 12 and instead of attending any "grad" ceremonies, I kept on with my continuing-education...Rock 101.

B.C. was in the midst of a high pressure weather pattern so a Bugaboo trip was at the top of the list. Peter had just returned from a climbing trip to England and was on a roll. He suggested we hike over to the Howsers and try to solo the Becky-Chouinard. It seemed a little out there to me, as neither of us had ever been over there and the route had a reputation for being pretty long. I mean, it even had an overnight ledge on it. We looked at the topo and it all seemed quite reasonable. Loads of cracks, lots of corners; all fairly moderate. We hadn't heard of anyone soloing it and there was a face climbing traverse which sounded a bit tricky.

Oh well, how could I pass up this opportunity? Peter was 7 years older and about that many grades better climber than I. I felt extremely fortunate to have this chance and I really doubt I would've been hiking over there by myself.

Climbing well meant not working much, which translated into very limited resources. As a result I was still climbing in Peter's old, blown out e.b.s. Sometimes, for the tougher climbs, I'd wear them on the opposite feet, so my inside edge was Peter's old outside edge. Less holes on that side. This felt a bit strange, with the curve and all, so often, if the climbing was moderate, I'd just wear them normally. We were going mountain-rambling so I would wear them normal-style. Big mistake.
We left the cabin quite early, just to give us lots of time. It was probably around 4 o'clock. Bruce and Dave were planning on the same route that day but for some reason we left ahead of them. I think Bruce's breakfast wasn't sitting very well at that wee hour of the day.

I'd also borrowed Peter's sister's mountain boots and boy, were they ever big, serious boots. Great for kicking steps up the col but terrible for clipping on the chalkbag sling.We packed our runners for the final drop down to the base of the route. We stopped at the Pigeon Howser col and stashed everything we could. There were a few double rope rapells off the summit so we each had a 9 mil rope coiled on our backs, mountaineer-style. I'm pretty sure we did the classic rapell technique as we didn't have any harnesses or gear.

We skied down a pretty long slope in our Nikes and then scrambled up some talus to the start of the route. Wow, I looked up and that route looked long; and it got a bit steeper at about half height. Unreal, granite heaven. The first couple hundred feet were pretty easy and we were cruising along quite nicely. Either my speed was starting to wain, or Superman, ahead of me, was just getting warmed up. Whatever the case, Peter was soon up, up, and away, completely out of sight and way too far above me for any communication. That didn't bother me too much. The route finding had been easy and I was loving all these five star cracks.

Before too long I arrived at that big bivy ledge and soaked up some exposure for a minute or two. Probably just half a minute, really. Absolutely no sign of the seasoned veteran anywhere, just me and myself standing on that ledge in the middle of nowhere. I looked up and to the left a touch and there was a beautiful crack. It looked steep and pretty real, but not too bad, I thought. I jammed my way up that crack for fifty or sixty feet and it seemed to be getting tougher as I went. Eventually it was thinning down to finger size and the warning bells started sounding in my head. This didn't seem to be what I'd read on the topo the night before and I was getting a little stressed. Suddenly the crack peterred out and at that point I could just see Peter, about half a pitch over to the right, and about a half pitch above me. I yelled over to him and all I got back was something about a wet chimney with some ice or something. I was such a hack at route finding. Unbelievable, now I had to downclimb this entire crack and that was an undertaking in itself. By the time I'm back down on the bivy ledge, Peter was so far above me there wasn't going to be any more interaction at all. Oh well, bright side was I had the right crack now.

Several hundred feet later I'm perched in a corner, looking out left at this face traverse we'd read about on the topo. It didn't look like a givaway and it was seeming more exposed by the minute. The climbing looked edgy and my blown out shoes were looking like a terrible choice, especially the way I was wearing them, with lots of skin poking through.

It was only fifteen or twenty feet of traversing but it was killing me, or at least trying to. I climbed out and back into the safety of the corner, making a little more progress each time. The exposure out there was massive and that glacier a thousand feet below was pulling on me like a powerfull magnet. I went back and fourth about five times in all and eventually figured out how to do all the moves. Oh man, it felt SO good to grab that edge of the arête.

I pull around the other side of the arête and there's Peter, crouched on a little stance, saying a few more prayers for me. He knew exactly the epic I was going to be experiencing, due to my (his) shoes, and he'd been there for quite awhile. We hadn't seen each other, really, since the start of the route, and we were overwhelmed with relief. So happy to see my friend, Herculees, we're both still alive and feeling pretty chuffed with our progress.

We stayed closer for the remainder of the route, none of which I remember; must've been much easier ground up to the top. We summitted, uncoiled our ropes, and undertook some painfull rappelling. I recall the last rap ended us on a little perch above a huge bergshrund. We pulled the ropes and had to do a big leap, out and over the gaping slot, onto the snowslope. We changed into our runners and trudged through the snow to find our cache.

I hadn't quite recovered from my face-climbing epic and the idea of more climbing couldn't have been further from my mind. Peter informs me he feels great and is keen for more action. I felt terrible but had to turn him down. I was happy to be velcroed to the earth for the remainder of the day.

I hiked back to the cabin and got there well before noon, I think. The fittest guy on the planet went on to solo every other peak in the Bugs that day. He got in after dinner. The guy was unstoppable and I was very fortunate to have shared one route with him that day. And it was a Beauty.

-Hamish Fraser

[gnarnaphobe]

Bump for getting permission to repost this story after I already posted it! woop woop